1. Field of the Description
The present description relates, in general, to systems and methods for personalizing experiences of a destination such as a theme park, a sporting event or concert, or a shopping mall, and, more particularly, to a method of managing experience state for people visiting a destination, which includes a number of venues or locations at which experience mechanisms/systems are used to generate personalized experiences, so as to better control the experience mechanism/system (which may be a scarce resource not available to all visitors) to more effectively personalize each person's visit to the destination.
2. Relevant Background
Operators of destination facilities (or simply “destinations”) are continuously searching for ways to attract more visitors and to enhance each visitor's enjoyment while at their destination. To this end, many destinations have added more and more opportunities to offer personalization and exclusive experience enhancements to visitors.
For example, a stadium hosting a game attended by thousands of fans may personalize the visit for a select number of the fans by announcing their names or displaying their images on a large screen. The personalized recognition makes the fan receiving the experience feel special and provides a memorable visit that they may wish to repeat.
Similarly, a theme park may use technology such as visual recognition, an RFID reader that reads a token or card, or the like to identify visitors and then personalize their visit or provide them an additional experience not provided to others. For example, a park visitor may carry a card or badge with a bar code, magnetic strip, an RFID tag, or other identifier, and a reader may be used to identify the visitor as being near a particular venue or location within the park such as near the location of an actor or character or in a vehicle on a ride.
Using this identification information, the visitor's profile or information may be retrieved from a database such as to determine it is the visitor's birthday, to determine their first name and/or home town, and find out whether they have paid for or otherwise are entitled to any preferred or enhanced experiences while at the park. Then, the identified visitor may have their visit personalized. This may include having their name or home town called out or displayed, the birthday song may be played with the person's first name substituted into the audio track, a character may greet the visitor by name, display screens may display their image with or without transformations (e.g., change their image into a princess, a pirate, a ball player, a movie character, and so on), or provide other personalized or enhanced experiences.
While personalization of visits is highly effective in enhancing enjoyment of a destination, a destination is typically limited on the number or amount of such experiences it can effectively provide its visitors. For example, an amusement park ride may be able to call out one hometown or rider's name per vehicle passing past a personalization device (or experience-generating system). This may result in a large fraction of the riders feeling left out or disappointed (e.g., thousands may ride a particular ride and only a few hundred may benefit from personalization).
As will be appreciated, the opportunities and devices used for personalizing or providing exclusive experiences are limited, and there is a need for managing these opportunities and devices as scarce resources to more fairly or at least purposively dole out the personalized or exclusive experiences. Destinations presently are typically operated so as to provide such experiences simply on a first-come-first-served basis or on a random basis. There remains a need for a system and method for managing the distribution of personalization and exclusive experience enhancements at destinations, which may range from theme parks or similar destinations to shopping destinations to facilities hosting concerts, plays, movies, sporting events, and the like.